Isn't it crazy to have wild turtles roaming free in your backyard? I was always flummoxed whenever I saw one crawling around. Where did it come from? Where was it going? Didn't it need a lake or an ocean or something to survive??

And isn't it fun to say the word turtle?

We didn't have backyard turtles when I was growing up in Nebraska. At least not in my neighborhood. St. Louis, on the other hand, is quite the turtle mecca. So much so, that fancy restaurants in the Lou like to serve up a little concoction known as "turtle soup."

I tried it once, unbeknownst to me.

Well, I knew it was turtle soup...but I thought it was a trick name, you know. Like these kinds of turtles...

I was wrong.

I knew after the first bite that something was horribly wrong with my turtle soup...

(It was made out of turtle.)

I couldn't look my backyard turtles in the eye again after that. Oh, the guilt...